By Renée Watson
A Black girl in Portland whose name means 'king' tries to be a ray of sunshine through a year her family spends stretching every dollar.
Ryan Hart's dad loses his job at the post office, so the family has to pack up for a smaller house and start counting every dollar. Her older brother Ray teases her the way big brothers do. The year that follows unspools in small, self-contained episodes: a dinner Ryan makes all by herself to help out goes so sideways, so fast, that it turns into a disaster, a speech she's set to give at church comes out all wrong, and the other small ups and downs of a single year come and go.
Renée Watson wrote Ryan to be the next Ramona, and she is: a funny, real, wholehearted child having the small adventures and small embarrassments of an ordinary year. The chapters stand on their own like little stories, which makes it a gentle place for a newer reader to build up. What gives it a warm center is that Ryan's family is going through a tight stretch, and Ryan meets it the way a lot of children do, by trying to be the cheerful one, and the book lets her be both worried and hopeful at once. A Black girl gets to be simply the funny, beloved heart of her own story here, and any child who has ever tried to keep things bright at home will know her right away.